NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - General Motors filed for bankruptcy protection early Monday, a move once viewed as unthinkable but became inevitable after years of losses and market share declines that were capped by a dramatic plunge in sales in recent months.

In the end, even $19.4 billion in federal help wasn't enough to keep the nation's largest automaker out of bankruptcy. The government will pour another $30 billion into GM to fund operations during its reorganization.

Taxpayers will end up with a 60% stake in GM, with the union, its creditors and federal and provincial governments in Canada owning the remainder of the company.

soundoff(31 Responses)

Harryt

It's really interesting reading all the Obama-bashing comments. Half of them somehow blame Obama for GM's mess, saying that it's due to Obama and the Democrats that the company is filing for bankruptcy and all of these jobs are being lost – in other words the goverment didn't do enough to save GM and Chrysler. The other half of the Obama-bashers are saying that GM should have been allowed to go into bankruptcy long ago, and that Obama was wasting tax-payer money trying to save the company and save the jobs, and that the government had no business poking its nose into private industry. Maybe we should just let these two camps have it out with each other.

June 1, 2009 10:30 am at 10:30 am |

inofritzn

Is it just me or is nobody in the media pointing out the fact we dumped billions in to "save" GM from bankruptcy just to have them file???? Shouldn't they have done this in the first place?? Seems like a scam to me....

June 1, 2009 10:39 am at 10:39 am |

southerncousin

Hurray for the unions, they have destroyed another company. It is a very long list now.

June 1, 2009 10:39 am at 10:39 am |

JAY JOHN

Who will be able to buy the cars with so many americans out of
work and no paycheck comming in., and if you are fortunate to
have a job, with higher taxes and the cost of living going up and
wages plummeting, you would want to think of taking care of your
family needs first ( FOOD, HEALTH, RENT,CLOTHING,) not
buying a new car .

June 1, 2009 10:43 am at 10:43 am |

Obama keeps putting more of your money....

down that GM rat hole. I knew there was a reason I didn't vote for him.

June 1, 2009 10:48 am at 10:48 am |

JAY JOHN

President Obama promised to produce more jobs for the
american worker . Not to send the jobs to other coutries